We both spend several turns before I test the waters of the river with a CENTER ASSAULT. My initial attacks do not go well and my infantry suffer in the river with me losing three units to the French two.

But then my BEL ordered Combat Eng infantry kills off the French arty which is a huge blow to the French defenses. We trade kills in the next few turns with mine coming from a RECON AIR STRIKE. A few turns after the French went ahead 5 to 4 I killed off a center infantry that had been weakened by BARRAGE the turn before and thus ended the game.

Once again the river crossing was tried and the French defenses were pressed but not broken before the French were able to kill off 7 units. A tough battle for the Germans and patient play may be the key.

Roger got onto the river with his infantry but rolled poorly. He did have a good combo of CLOSE ASSAULT and FIREFIGHT but could not get that elusive 4th kill althoug my forces were pretty thin in the end.

I started off by moving some guys up toward the river, then I brought in my Me109 on Adam's side and pelted the artillery 2 turns in a row, each time scoring a star, thereby finishing it. 1 to 0.

Once I was crossing over to attack, Adam's bunker dudes used Close Assault to deal out pain, finishing my engineers. 1 to 1.

I came back with an Artillery Bombard and finished 1 bunkered unit in the center, and removed 1 fig from another. 2 to 1.

He replied with a 2-hit roll against my 2-fig infantry. 2 to 2.

I had my artillery and armor attack across the bridge on the ARF. I finished 1 inf unit and hurt another. 3 to 2.

He healed his damaged inf unit up to 4 figs.

I pulled an Infantry Assault in the middle and finished one bunker unit, taking ground from the river. 4 to 2.

Adam played All-in-the-Middle and finished my engineers with his mortar. He also weakened another inf from 4 to 1 figs. Ouch. 4 to 3.

I responded with BEL and took his inf down to 1 fig, then ran away to hide. =)

He attacked with Direct from HQ and hurt my inf a bit.

I responded with Counter-Attack and finished his 1-fig inf with my artillery. 5 to 3.

Adam got somewhat card hosed, so it was tough for him.

One thing that was huge for me is my lucky reserves roll (grenade) that allowed me to bring in an artillery unit on the ARF. That unit did lots of damage, and he couldn't hit it. Having taken out his artillery with my plane, he was hosed in the long-range battle. We were both hesitant to approach the river: him, because he wouldn't be able to attack on the turn he moved into a city, and me, because I didn't want to get hosed by his mortar and inf clustered in the city.

Even with center cards, this battle was very lopsided for the Axis. Their advance really is halted by the terrain setup and they have trouble getting any sort of offensive going against the Allied positions.

This battle was not as close as the medals might indicate. The Axis bungled forward and spent most of the game unable to order the center. The Allies did not have any such problem, and that made all the difference on this map.